The real meaning of "performance"

You know, I'm beginning to believe the Administration officials really, truly believe that the purged prosecutors were fired for "performance" reasons. See this article about Pat Fitzgerald in today's Washington Post:

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had "not distinguished themselves" on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.

The ranking placed Fitzgerald below "strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty" to the administration but above "weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.," according to Justice documents.

The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show.

Now, reasonable observers, such as Mary Jo White (whom I've faced in court) might think that proves they weren't fired for performance reasons.

Mary Jo White, who supervised Fitzgerald when she served as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan and who has criticized the firings, said ranking him as a middling prosecutor "lacks total credibility across the board."

"He is probably the best prosecutor in the nation -- certainly one of them," said White, who worked in the Clinton and Bush administrations. "It casts total doubt on the whole process. It's kind of the icing on the cake."

But, I think it does prove it. It proves that, to a Bushie, "performance" means chasing Democrats for things they didn't do and ignoring the things Republicans did do. They really believe that. It's deeply engrained in the Rove training method.